US finds Venezuela's CITGO oil guilty of pollution

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Venezuela's CITGO Petroleum Corp. -- which provided cheap heating oil for thousands of Americans the last two winters -- was found guilty of environmental crimes by a federal jury in Texas, the US Justice Department said Wednesday.

The state-owned company's Corpus Christi East Plant Refinery was in violation of the Clean Air Act "for nearly 10 years ... when it failed to install and operate proper emissions control equipment" on two open-top tanks, the department said in a statement.

For two felony criminal violations of the act, CITGO faces fines of up to 500,000 dollars for each count, or twice the ...